AS determines the performance of Solid State Drives (SSD). The tool contains four synthetic as well as three practice tests. The synthetic tests are to determine the sequential and random read and write performance of the SSD. These tests are carried out without the use of the operating system caches.

In all synthetic tests the test file size is 1GB. AS can also determine the access time of the SSD, the access of which the drive is determined to read through the entire capacity of the SSD (Full Stroke). The write access test is only to be met with a 1 GB big test file. At the end of the tests three values for the read and write as well as the overall performance will be issued. In addition to the calculated values which are shown in MB/s, they are also represented in IO per seconds (IOPS).

Note: AS SSD is a great benchmark for many tests, but since Crystal Disk Mark covers a broader range of 4K tests and HD Tune Pro covering sequential speeds, we will only use the Copy Benchmark from AS SSD.

- Copy Benchmark

The most commonly used task for external storage products is transferring data to and from the drive. In AS SSD we are able to simulate a controlled transfer of three common file formats. Without NCQ and a faster interface we see that the INDYLAB Touch is limited to around 14MB/s of real world performance when transferring data.

Final Thoughts

With USB 2.0 quickly evaporating as a protocol for external storage media I am going to have a difficult time recommending the INDYLAB Touch to most users. The touch technology is very cool and I really dig the jingle that plays every time I press the button, but most users are looking for raw performance across the board and not gimmicky jingles or the cool factor.

When it really comes down to it, USB 2.0 is limited to around 30 to 35MB/s and in today's world of DVD, Blu-ray and game installs that are getting up to 15GB in size, that speed really isn't practical. The needed answer to hour long data transfers is USB 3.0. USB 3.0 is currently able to transfer data up to three times faster than USB 2.0 and if you are buying an external drive then there is no question that you need to buy something with USB 3.0.

I have to admit that I don't do much shopping in Korea, but after the conversion to USD the INDYLAB Touch costs roughly 95 USD. At that price, you will be able to purchase a 7,200 500GB RPM 2.5" drive and a low cost USB 3.0 case in the US. I am willing to bet that is true for Korea as well.

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